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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24612481">a toast to years to come</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx/pseuds/Archaeopteryx'>Archaeopteryx</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Time Travel, for the retroactive protection of your past self</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:22:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,113</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24612481</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Archaeopteryx/pseuds/Archaeopteryx</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Tongue clumsy on a language he hasn't properly spoken in years, Dedue croaks, "Who — are you?"</p>
  <p>The stranger takes a long time to consider that question. "An old soldier," he says at last, soft as the breeze that rustles the leaves.</p>
</blockquote>Dedue gets a birthday visit from himself.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Dedue Molinaro</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>110</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>a toast to years to come</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Though it's the end of the Verdant Moon, the temperature of the mountain air plummets at night. A crescent sliver hangs in the sky, too faint for Dedue to see his misting breath. His body knows Garreg Mach's gardens without the guidance of his eyes; the cold and the rough gravel anchor him when he wants to crawl out of his skin. His fingers brush a silent greeting to each friendly stalk and stem that spills onto the path. They whisper as he passes, but their whispers aren't unkind — just remarking that he's here at such an odd hour, when a walking person such as he should be deep asleep.</p><p>Well, he can't sleep.</p><p>Instead, he's here, in the shelter and the quiet of the gardens he's helped grow. He sits on the edge of his personal plot with his head in his hands. No one else is here. The keeper of the greenhouse lent him a key after his first month at the monastery, and Dedue locks up carefully. No one else has a reason to slip inside.</p><p>So no one can hear his breath hitch when, all but silently, he starts to cry.</p><p>He wraps his arms around his ribs, and rocks himself, and wheezes with the effort of holding all his fractured parts together and wishes he could <em>scream</em> — </p><p>"Pardon me. May I sit?"</p><p>He bolts to his feet, pulse bounding like a startled deer — rubs his eyes and sniffs back the worst of his tears — and freezes.</p><p>It's been so long since he heard his own tongue.</p><p>The stranger's silhouette shifts; his moonlit outline suggests hands raised in the universal sign for 'I'm unarmed.' He's <em>big</em> — Dedue's height and even broader, heavyset in an adult way Dedue hasn't yet grown into. What little light there is gleams off pale hair in a high ponytail that sweeps forward over one of his shoulders. He reminds Dedue of no one so much as his own father, and it only worsens the sting in his eyes and the pain in his throat.</p><p>He swallows, and croaks, his tongue clumsy on a language he hasn't properly spoken in years, "Who — are you?"</p><p>The stranger takes a long time to consider that question. "An old soldier," he says at last, soft as the breeze that rustles the leaves.</p><p>"What do you want?"</p><p>"To sit. Maybe chat. It's lonely this far south."</p><p>Dedue has spent four years honing his self-control, and that is the only reason he doesn't sob then and there. Instead he inclines his head towards the stone bench a little ways away, then realizes the gesture means nothing in the dark. "There's a bench."</p><p>"I think I see it." Gravel rasps on boot leather. The stranger brushes past Dedue, and maybe he only imagines feeling the heat off him in the cold air. Because it is so dark, he tilts his head back to the stars, presses a fist to his chest, swallows the tears still stinging his eyes and prays thanks to the god of lost souls.</p><p>The stranger is right. He has been so, so accursedly lonely.</p><p>His body carries him to the bench and sits him beside the stranger with a mind and a need of its own; Dedue could not have fought it even if he'd wanted to. The small bench forces points of contact, and they <em>burn</em> — Dedue's knee, his elbow and upper arm where they press against the stranger's — his skin <em>hungers</em>, threatening to shatter all his carefully constructed walls. He wants to crawl into this familiar stranger's lap like a child and cry until he can't feel any more, and be held and rocked and shushed and sung his father's lullabies until, exhausted, he sleeps; all the crooked shards of him insist that he'll wake in his own bed, with his sister teasing him for sleeping late and the smell of his mother's biscuits in the air, and the past four and a half years will be a terrible fading nightmare.</p><p>— and he hears the stranger's voice, and realizes something's been said. "I'm sorry, uncle," he says politely, "could you repeat that?"</p><p>"This is not where I'd expect to meet another child of Duscur."</p><p>Dedue's breath catches. Can he tell this stranger about Dimitri? About their relationship? Dare he, and risk the wrath of his first taste of home since it all burned, and however badly that would break him?</p><p>Can he bear to keep such guarded caution towards one of his own?</p><p>"The prince of Faerghus saved me from the flames," he says, clear and neutral. "He was family to me when I had none. He has made promises to me and to our people that I will not see him break. I am here as his companion, to ensure he does not lose his way, and so we may watch over each other as family should."</p><p>He braces for the worst. </p><p>"That's quite a story for one so young," says the stranger.</p><p>Dedue swipes away another round of stinging tears. The relief is too much to bear, after so long holding himself aloof and cold. "And you, uncle?" he asks. "I've not seen you in the monastery. What brings you here?" <em>This garden is locked</em>, he does not say.</p><p>"Travel," says the stranger. "I don't think I'll be staying long."</p><p><em>No</em>, Dedue wants to beg, <em>no no no, don't go, please stay, don't leave me alone, I need even one person who understands.</em> "I see," he says.</p><p>"I'm sorry, child," says the stranger. "It's not in my control."</p><p>"I see," Dedue says again, glad of the dark that hides his shaking hands.</p><p>The stranger's arm shifts back. "May I?"</p><p>Dedue nods. If he speaks, his voice will crack, and it will all be over.</p><p>The stranger's arm settles around his shoulders, solid and steadying, warm and familial. Every one of Dedue's nerves lights up like a polar aurora.</p><p>He hiccups. The tears spill over like meltwater. Something in his chest thaws, expands, forcing four and a half years of pent-up fear and grief and fury and bitter loneliness up and out, and now it's begun he can't even try to stop it.</p><p>"You've been alone all this time," the stranger says, soft and sorrowful.</p><p>Mute, Dedue shakes his head. He hasn't been so alone — he's had Dimitri, who is by definition as Faerghan as it is possible to get, but who was there, and who tries, and is almost like family, so — so — </p><p>He nods.</p><p>“It’s my birthday,” he croaks.</p><p>"Oh, <em>child</em>," says the stranger.</p><p>It's not <em>pity</em>, it's not <em>guilt</em>, worthless, corrosive, and sickening; it's the quiet sorrow of one who has felt the same and has no more answers than Dedue does. It has been so, so long since anyone besides Dimitri looked past his height and his weight and his silence and saw all the ways in which he's small, and shattered, and suffering.</p><p>Dedue crumples into the stranger's arms, clinging to any fabric he can reach, keening as his child’s repair-work of string and paste crumbles to pieces. The stranger gathers him up, holds him close, muffles Dedue's sobs in his broad chest and rubs his shoulders in the way Dedue's father would. He smells like <em>home</em> in a way Dedue cannot name, that he hadn't known to miss until it found him, and it hits him all over again every time the need to breathe forces a break in his sobs.</p><p>"Shh," the stranger rumbles. "Shh. I have you."</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Dedue chokes, not knowing what he’s been punished for except the crime of living when the others burned. He must have done something wrong for it to hurt so much; he cannot fathom what, but maybe if he apologizes enough it’ll take pity and stop. “I’m sorry — ”</p><p>“You have nothing to be sorry for, child,” the stranger says. His voice rings with a comforting edge of anger. He hums — Dedue's bones recognize the tune before his mind does. It's a lullaby peculiar to the Molinaro valley, one he'd never thought to hear again outside of memories.</p><p>He doesn't know how he'll ever stop crying.</p><p>But his body has only so much salt and water to give. As he exhausts himself, he's left dry-sobbing into the stranger's shoulder, curled up in his lap and clutching at his scarf, nose buried in wool of a fine weave he's not felt in years. His ears ring and his head aches with a muffling humid fog. The sticky salt-bitterness of tears clogs his throat.</p><p>“Uncle,” he croaks, hoarse with weeping, “am I doing the right thing?”</p><p>The stranger sits in silence, rocking them both. A cold breeze sweeps over them, chilling the sweat and tear-tracks that streak Dedue’s face.</p><p>"This prince of yours," the stranger says at last. "You trust him?"</p><p>"With everything," Dedue says, in a quick, hot flash of anger. Quieter, he adds, "I have to."</p><p>"Then not even the gods can ask more of you," says the stranger.</p><p>Okay. "Okay," Dedue says, small. His eyes close.</p><p>The stranger sighs. He dabs the end of his scarf against Dedue’s face, wiping away the worst of the weepy mess. “Sleep,” he says. "You need your rest."</p><p>Out in the garden?</p><p>Apparently not. The stranger hefts Dedue into his arms as he stands — with a grunt, but he <em>does</em> it, lets Dedue stay curled up small against his chest and be carried like a child. It’s almost enough for Dedue to start crying again.</p><p>"You're not wearing shoes, child. I won't make you walk," the stranger says, answering a question Dedue is too wrung-out to put words to.</p><p>So that's alright.</p><p>He doesn't ask why the stranger knows from which pocket to fish his string of keys, or how the stranger knows to which door to carry him, or why the stranger only needs a second try to fumble the right key into the lock by touch alone. What matters is that, from the bench in the garden to his room, his feet never touch the ground. He’s tucked into his bed and passed a glass of water with a father's gentleness. It's the closest to peace he's felt in four and a half years.</p><p>The stranger ruffles his hair with a broad hand. "Goodnight, Dedue," he says.</p><p>That, at last, is too strange to ignore.</p><p>Dedue cracks one eye open, though his head swims with weariness and words scatter like the beads of a broken necklace. " … I never told you my name."</p><p>Silence.</p><p>"Ah," says the stranger.</p><p>He snaps his fingers and speaks a word. A sigil sparks in his palm — Dedue flinches, pulse leaping, but the flame only flickers on the end of the stranger's index finger. It's a trick his more magically-inclined classmates use to light candles, and the stranger does just that, touching the flame to the twin candles on Dedue's bedside table.</p><p>"Annette taught me that," the stranger says. " … perhaps I should say 'us'."</p><p>Dedue's eyes adjust to the light. He stares.</p><p>The stranger stares back at him with his own green-grey eyes, the furrowed brow and bold features everyone says — used to say — take after his father. He's older, his features more defined and lacking Dedue's lingering teenage gangliness. Faint lines have settled around his eyes and mouth, and fine scars scatter his face, but that face is the one Dedue sees in every reflective surface.</p><p>" … I apologize for the deception," says the other Dedue. "I wasn't sure how to explain."</p><p>That certainly sounds like him.</p><p>Dedue sits up and rubs his eyes. Questions circle into questions until he has nothing but a tangle of confusion. Should he protest this? It seems impossible. It is also certainly happening.</p><p>“I have no more answers than you,” says the adult with his face. His gaze slips away, his eyes lighting on the candle-flame while his brow furrows. A surge of vertigo sweeps over Dedue — he’s been mirrored gesture for gesture, but his reflection has a face and a mind of his own. “I don’t know how I came to be here. I think I may be dreaming … but if I am here, I should be the comfort I needed, when I was you.”</p><p>Dedue supposes that explains how this other person has seemed so good at guessing his thoughts. It explains why this other person knows so much about him, and why he’s reminded Dedue so much of his own father … the thought is unsettling. Maybe. He can’t decide how to feel about the situation.</p><p>But he has — so many questions. He doesn’t <em>care</em> how this came to be, or if he’s dreaming, or if it’s possible. He clears his throat, though his voice still comes out small. “How old are you?”</p><p>“Thirty-eight,” says his older self.</p><p>Thirty-eight.</p><p>Dedue can hardly imagine living that long. Reaching twenty seems insurmountable. His thirties? His late thirties?</p><p>He shakes his head. “ … your scars,” he says, pressing a thumb to the corner of his own mouth, where a raised line of dark tissue has sliced through his double’s lip. </p><p>His double’s face darkens, and he sighs. “You have difficult days ahead," he says. "There will be nights you cannot imagine living to see dawn … but that’s nothing new to you, is it? I survived them. So will you." His expression softens, and the corners of his eyes crinkle with Dedue's own subtle smile. "And when those days are done, your life will be better than you can imagine. We have a daughter," he adds. "She's — perfect. Handsome, and strong, and full of more love than she can sometimes bear."</p><p>A <em>daughter?</em></p><p>He does not believe it.</p><p>He cannot believe it.</p><p>He cannot imagine a path that will bring him from here to — to peace. To happiness. To the safety and security required to raise a child well. He cannot imagine living to see the future on which he's bargained all his hope.</p><p>And yet the lines on his double's face follow the shadow of his smile. There's a satisfied weight to him, a comfort in the way he inhabits his skin. He carries himself with an easy confidence that Dedue as he is now cannot imagine. Because he is (was) Dedue, and Dedue is (will be) him, Dedue knows he cannot be lying.</p><p>"How?" he whispers.</p><p>"Take care of Dimitri," his double says. "He'll need it, but he'll return that care a hundredfold, if you let him. Most of all, be brave. Tell the world what you must, but never forget the truth — you are a child of Duscur, and you fight for her sake."</p><p>Bitterness flashes through Dedue, ugly and sharp. His shoulders bunch "How can I fight for a dead land?"</p><p>His double's shoulders tense in sympathy, heavy with old pain. A shadow flickers across his eyes, and vertigo lurches again through Dedue's stomach. This is, undeniably, himself, whether or not he can believe it.</p><p>"Do you still think," his double says, “as I once did, that Faerghus broke the pride of Duscur?”</p><p>“They <em>did</em>.”</p><p>“<em>They did not.</em>” His double presses the back of his fist against Dedue’s chest, left of his sternum, over his heart. In the orange candlelight his eyes are black as summer thunder, and he burns with the flameless earth-shaking heat that drives mountains towards the sky. “You — <em>we</em> — are the pride of Duscur. Pride has kept you from dying of heartbreak. Pride has carried you here, and it will carry you farther still. Be proud, Dedue." His voice wavers. "Our every breath is proof that Duscur's people are not so easily broken."</p><p>Dedue inhales. He’s begun to tremble again, and his voice shrinks in his throat. “It’s hard.”</p><p>"It’s more weight than anyone should bear," says his double. His voice falters, and his gaze darts away. " … I can't save you."</p><p>Dedue sniffs back the sting of yet more tears. "You don't have to save me. I became you once. I can do it again. I would be proud to," he adds, fierce. He knows himself that well.</p><p>"I'm proud to have been you," his double says, with a silent, shaking laugh and a bright wet gleam in his eyes, and Dedue is trying so hard to be strong but his shoulders hitch anyway. "You brought me to the better days I know. Without you I would never have seen home again."</p><p>Dedue's heart stops.</p><p>" … Home?"</p><p>"Home," says his double.</p><p>Oh his heart could break — burst from the cage of his ribs and fly as a bird from these foreign mountains all the way to the glaciers and peaks he knows as his own. His mind knows those slopes are ruin, nothing but mud and ash and Kleiman mining equipment carving violence into the earth, but he <em>wants</em>, is so homesick it could shatter him. His double leans in and rests his forehead against Dedue's, with one hand on the back of his neck. The simple familial gesture wrenches so sharply at Dedue's heart that he almost forgets to return it.</p><p>“In my time, the fields bloom again,” his double says. “The land heals. So do we.” He kisses Dedue’s brow while he’s stuck on that, and nudges him to lie down. “Sleep. You need rest to rebuild a nation."</p><p>He can <em>smell</em> it, the cold air, the clean breeze, the morning mist heavy with late-summer flowers and early autumn fruits. He curls up on his side without resistance, though he catches his double's wrist.</p><p>"You have to go home," Dedue whispers, though he wants to fall apart again, wants to scream and sob and cling to the greatest comfort he's known since the worst day of his life — but that would mean tearing his older self from the home and happiness Dedue has yet to build.</p><p>Bitterly, grieving, he's learned when he has to let go.</p><p>His double nods. Dedue closes his eyes. Another wash of tears drips across the bridge of his nose; he hiccups, and his double sighs, wiping them away with the pad of his thumb. "I'll stay while I can," he says. </p><p>" … sing?" Dedue asks, the way he would ask his father after a nightmare.</p><p>His double hums, so low it rattles in Dedue's chest. After a few bars he shifts into the words of an old, familiar lullaby, the story of a stream and a spring breeze who descend from their mountaintop home. The pair are inseparable until they reach the sea; then the stream must journey on to the ocean's floor, while the breeze must rise and return to the mountains. The friends part with such sorrow the sun takes pity on them, and turns the stream to a cloud, to be carried always by the breeze.</p><p>It was his father’s favorite, and it’s a favorite comfort to Dedue. He sings himself this lullaby when he feels smallest and most broken, when every line and angle of the world cuts like shattered glass and blinding winter threatens to swallow him whole. It cushions like eiderdown as his double draws the covers over him, snuffs the candles, and sits on the edge of the bed. </p><p>Curled up and quiet, with a gentle hand petting his hair, Dedue cries himself to sleep.</p><p>***</p><p>“Dedue?”</p><p>He snaps awake, blinking in the bright light.</p><p>— the room is empty. That’s an old, familiar heartbreak, easy enough for him to swallow. He drags himself out of bed, rubs the leftover stains of salt from his eyes, and shakes off a strange and vivid dream.</p><p>Dream?</p><p>He blinks down at his feet. They’re dusty. They hadn’t been when he went to bed.</p><p>“ … Dedue? Are you there?”</p><p>Right. “One moment, your Highness,” he calls back, crossing to unlock his door. It opens onto an empty hallway; Dedue stares, baffled, until the crown prince of Faerghus bounces up from where he’d been lying on the floor.</p><p>Dedue’s blank look serves as question enough. “I was afraid I’d break the latch if I knocked,” Dimitri explains, turning pink.</p><p>Gods, this boy. Something warm and fond wells up in Dedue’s chest. For once, he lets himself feel it, lets his head tilt and his eyes crinkle. “A prince shouldn’t be seen lying on the floor,” he teases, brushing some invisible dust from Dimitri’s shoulder.</p><p>Dimitri huffs, going even redder. “Who’s going to stop me?” he retorts, crossing his arms. “Anyway, I wasn’t seen. Everyone else has gone to class,” he adds.</p><p>That explains the brightness and the odd angle of the light — and Dimitri’s fully dressed in his armor and House leader’s uniform. Cursing himself, Dedue starts to shut his door again. Dimitri grabs the edge before it can close. “I’m so sorry,” Dedue says, flustered. “You shouldn’t be late on my account — ”</p><p>“I was worried. It’s not like you to oversleep.” Dimitri shoulders the door open to press the back of his hand to Dedue’s forehead. “Are you well? Wait — ” His eyes focus on Dedue’s. Some tear-stain must have lingered, or some trace of bloodshot puffiness. Dedue stiffens and turns his face away.</p><p>“It’s nothing.”</p><p>“ … alright.” Dimitri sounds unconvinced, but he won’t pry, which is all Dedue asks. “There’s nothing wrong with sleeping in every so often. I’m sure the professor wouldn’t mind.” He smiles, unsteady, shy. “It is your birthday.”</p><p>It’s a small thing, but Dimitri struggles with small things, easily loses track of the day or the month and sometimes even where he is. It’s … sweet, in light of that, that this is one thing he refuses to forget. It feeds a spark that Dedue tucks safely in his chest, where it can smolder quietly without dying.</p><p>He smiles back, though it’s rusty, stiff on his face. “Even so, your Highness, I would rather not be later than we are already.” He tugs on the door. Dimitri steps back and raises his hands, sheepish, allowing Dedue to finally close it.</p><p>“ … happy birthday,” Dimitri says, muffled through the door. Dedue pauses with his hand still on the doorknob.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says. “I’m sure it will be.”</p><p>***</p><p>“Dedue!”</p><p>Startled as he’s shaken out of sleep, he swings blindly. Only Dimitri’s reflexes save him from Dedue’s backhand. He rears back, hands raised, and Dedue takes a blinking moment to shake off his drowsiness and orient himself.</p><p>Bed. <em>Their</em> bed, in Fhirdiad castle, with the carved posts and the dark velvet canopy, the heavy quilt and furs, large enough to comfortably fit both their broad six-foot frames with room to spare. Dimitri broad-shouldered and battle-scarred, one eye a hollow socket, hair better-groomed and even longer than he’d kept it during the war. The pale blue light of early dawn filters in through their window.</p><p>“I thought,” Dimitri says, his good eye wide and his slitted pupil lost in a sea of blue, “I mean — when did you get in last night? I couldn’t find you all last evening — I thought you might have gone to the Duscur quarter, but it’s not like you to leave without saying … ”</p><p>He falls silent as Dedue holds up a hand, rubbing his eyes with the other. They’re a grown man’s hands, heavy and hardened by use, though these days they bear ink stains more often than bandages.</p><p>“ … I’m sorry,” Dedue says, once his head’s stopped spinning and he’s gathered the words. “I was … called away urgently, without the chance to let you know.”</p><p>“Oh.” Dimitri settles, his figurative feathers unruffling. “Is everything alright?”</p><p>Is it?</p><p>The cool morning softens everything, the light of a yawning sun that has yet to fully wake. It catches in Dimitri's hair, highlights all the lines of him that have softened as they've aged, as peace has settled comfortably on their bones.</p><p>"It is now," Dedue says, leaning forward to kiss him.</p><p>"Okay," says Dimitri once they part. He worms in to tug Dedue back down to the bed, where they curl up close as cats. “‘m sorry I woke you,” he mumbles, draping his arm across Dedue’s chest. “It’s too early to be up … anyway, we should take today off.”</p><p>“That’s rare to hear from you,” Dedue murmurs back. Dimitri makes a surprised noise in his throat.</p><p>“Did you forget, love?” He props himself up on one elbow. Dedue raises his eyebrows; Dimitri kisses him again, short and sweet. “Happy birthday.”</p><p>Is it?</p><p>Another year alive; another year with the man he loves; another year of flowers on the fields of Duscur. Another year for the old pain to fade into bitter memory. Dedue rolls onto his side, sweeping Dimitri into a close embrace. He buries his face in Dimitri’s chest, and squeezes his eyes shut against a wash of stinging tears.</p><p>“Yes,” he says, hoarse. “It is.”</p>
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